November 2024

8 November 2024

As I write, we’re halfway through Semester 2 exams and nearing the end of another successful academic year at La Trobe. Approaching year’s end is a time to begin reflecting on what we have achieved during 2024 – and to look ahead to next year.

It has been immensely gratifying to serve my first year as La Trobe’s Vice-Chancellor. I’ve been so impressed by the dedication and expertise of our staff and the impact we have in communities across our campus network. The year has not been without its challenges, but I’m proud to say we have delivered on our mission to make a difference by working with our partners and communities, providing an outstanding student experience, and advancing impactful research and innovation. I look forward to talking more about the achievements and challenges of 2024 at our final all-staff webinar of the year on 13 November.

On the policy front, the Federal Government is expected to bring the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill 2024 to a vote in the final parliamentary sitting fortnight of the year, which commences on 18 November. If passed, the Bill will give the Minister for Education the power to place limits on the number of international students that providers can enrol from 2025 and will remove Ministerial Direction 107, which has slowed processing of visas for international students, particularly from South Asia.

Last weekend, the Government also announced plans to reduce student loan debts by 20 per cent by 1 June next year. If passed, this would decrease debt by around $16 billion overall for the three million Australians who have a student loan. Additionally, the Government has proposed raising the minimum repayment threshold for student loans and introducing a marginal repayment system, which was recommended by the Australian Universities Accord (AUA) review panel.

The growing level of student debt is very concerning, especially as it presents a financial barrier for students from less advantaged backgrounds to undertake a degree. As a university whose founding mission is to increase access to higher education, La Trobe greatly welcomes these measures to reduce loan debt. We would also like to see the Job Ready Graduate package be replaced with a new funding formula for student contributions that is fairer and more sustainable, as also recommended by the AUA review panel.

We will keep staff updated on higher education policy and the passage of Bills through parliament. In the meantime, I’d like to mention some recent achievements and activities from across our campuses.

AI futures

La Trobe University was pleased to participate in the Committee for the Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) 2024 AI Leadership Summit that was held in Melbourne on 21 and 22 October. I joined panellists from Amazon Web Services, Telstra, and National Australia Bank for a session that explored how AI can be harnessed for business innovation and productivity. In this video filmed ahead of the Summit, I talk about the potential for AI to transform research and innovation as well as business processes at La Trobe, and personalise the learning experience of our students.

AI will profoundly reshape our economies and societies in the coming decades, and with it everything we can and should do in our universities. At La Trobe, we want to be at the forefront of shaping positive change for the benefit of all. For this reason, we are committed to leveraging AI to innovate in research, teaching, student support and business operations to maximise our impact for the communities we serve. Importantly, our AI strategy is underpinned by key principles of safety and responsibility, ensuring we can adopt AI within a strong ethical framework. More details will be announced soon.

Health innovation on show

The Chancellor and I hosted an event at the Victorian Parliament last month to showcase La Trobe’s health innovation program to MPs from all sides of politics. We outlined the University’s $180 million investment to expand health teaching programs by providing new nursing, midwifery, and allied health clinical simulation facilities at every campus, and promoted the Australian Centre for AI in Medical Innovation that we launched in September. James Boyd, our Chair of Digital Health and Innovation, joined Dr Loren Sher from Northern Health to talk about our partnership to deliver the award-winning Victorian Virtual Emergency Department. There’s a terrific video about the project that you can watch here.

Attendees included a number of ministers and shadow ministers. The event was an excellent opportunity to demonstrate the impact of our investments to address critical health workforce shortages and promote La Trobe’s leadership, growing capabilities, and expertise in health innovation.

Nursing with impact

I was delighted to take part in the opening of the new clinical nursing simulation suite at our Mildura campus, which will help us to address the shortage of 79,000 nurses that Australia will face by 2035. The $4.97 million suite features two state-of-the-art clinical laboratories built to hospital standards and doubles the current capacity on the Mildura campus. It will provide students with an immersive and realistic experience so they can develop job-ready skills in the most advanced clinical training environment in the district – and is named after Dr Deb Neal, who was La Trobe’s first Mildura based employee and went on to serve as head of campus for many years. It was lovely to welcome Deb, her husband John, and daughter Claire to campus for the opening of the Dr Deb Neal Wing.

La Trobe luminaries

It was fantastic to see Julie Andrews, our Academic Director of Indigenous Research and the Director of the Gabra Biik, Wurruwila Wutja Indigenous Research Centre, inducted into the Victorian Honour Roll of Women in recognition of her leadership, scholarship, and impact in Aboriginal Studies and Indigenous policy and education over many years.

Congratulations to Kay Crossley, Director of the La Trobe Sport and Exercise Medicine Research Centre, on being awarded the inaugural Australian Council of Deans of Health Sciences Impact Award for leadership in clinical practice and advancing the understanding and treatment of musculoskeletal conditions.

I am also delighted to report that Jane Mills, Dean of the La Trobe Rural Health School, has been named the national Rural/Remote Health Advocate of the Year at the 2024 National Rural and Remote Health Awards. Jane was presented with this prestigious award by Her Excellency the Honourable Ms Sam Mostyn AC, Governor General of the Commonwealth of Australia, at an awards ceremony held at the National Press Club earlier this week.

Well done to Julie, Kay and Jane on these well-deserved awards.

Power to the people

It was great to be in Bendigo on 17 October for the Sir John Quick lecture. Sir John was a key proponent of Australian Federation and was elected unopposed as Bendigo’s first Federal MP. The 2024 lecture was delivered by renowned Australian National University historian Frank Bongiorno, author of the brilliant La Trobe University Press book Dreamers and Schemers: A Political History of Australia, whose talk explored dualities in Australian democracy past and present. It was a timely commentary on the foundations of democracy and the way that democracy continues to evolve alongside societal change – and a pertinent reminder about the role of representative government at a time when many of us had been watching the United States election unfold. Before the lecture, we presented prizes to our top Law students in Bendigo – thanks to our partners from Bendigo-based law firms Robertson Hyetts Lawyers and O'Farrell Robertson McMahon Lawyers.

Well done to the Law School and Bendigo campus staff on presenting a terrific example of our thought leadership and public scholarship role in the local community.

Shaping Australia

MedTech company AlleSense, which was created to support the commercialisation of the NanoMslide technology invented by La Trobe researchers Brian Abbey and Eugeniu Balaur, is a finalist in the Problem Solver category of the 2024 Universities Australia Shaping Australia Awards. The NanoMslide uses colour contrast to identify abnormal cells to detect disease. AlleSense is supporting researchers to progress development of the slide to clinical trials and facilitating technology validation with partners including the Australian National Fabrication Facility. There’s a great video about the project that you can watch here.

Don’t forget to vote for AlleSense in the Shaping Australia Awards People’s Choice category!

Islamic art on show

Congratulations to Rosalind Noor on winning the 2024 Australian Muslim Artists Art Prize, which the University sponsored for a sixth time this year. The Prize is part of our partnership with the Islamic Museum of Australia and helps us to support the Museum’s mission to promote Islamic culture and provide educational and cross-cultural experiences. Rosalind’s winning work, The Sovereign, examines hybridity and exchange by combining traditional techniques and visual motifs. The Sovereign and works by the other finalists are being exhibited at the Museum’s site in Thornbury until 1 March 2025.

Winning words

Congratulations to Lee-Ann Monk, David Henderson, Christine Bigby, Richard Broome, and Katie Holmes on being joint winners of the Australian Society of Archivists’ Mander Jones Award for their book Failed Ambitions: Kew Cottages and Changing Ideas of Intellectual Disabilities. The award recognises publications that best illuminate archives and archival collections.

Meanwhile, books published by the La Trobe University Press have once again been nominated for a national literary award. Ryan Cropp’s biography of Donald Horne, which won the 2024 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Australian History, has been shortlisted for the 2024 Australian Political Book of the Year award. The Echidna Strategy: Australia’s Search for Power and Peace by Sam Roggeveen was longlisted for the award.

Upcoming events

I encourage you to attend some of the great events listed below that are happening over the coming weeks.

On 12 November, you can learn about the research equipment and capabilities available at La Trobe and how you can accelerate your research program at our 2024 Research Infrastructure Expo. You can register here.

On 13 November, the Australian Research Council’s Chief Research Officer, Professor Christina Twomey, and Executive Director of Social, Behavioural, and Economic Sciences, Professor Anika Gauja, are visiting La Trobe for a panel discussion - you can attend online or in person at the Bundoora campus. The discussion will consider recent changes and current priorities at the ARC as well as misunderstandings about ARC grants.

On 15 November, La Trobe Asia is presenting a webinar to launch the book The Politics of Language Oppression in Tibet by Gerald Roche from the Department of Politics, Media and Philosophy. La Trobe Asia Director Bec Strating will introduce a discussion with Gerald, Sonika Gupta from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, and Anna Belew from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, which will be chaired by La Trobe Asia’s Deputy Director, Ruth Gamble.

Parched, a new research-led exhibition at the La Trobe Art Institute, opens on 20 November and runs until 9 February 2025. Parched explores representations of drought and was co-curated by Jacqueline Millner, an art theorist in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences who specialises in contemporary art and its intersections with social, political, and cultural change, with LAI staff Karen Annett and Amelia Wallin. The exhibition is one of the outcomes of the interdisciplinary research project Parched: Cultures of Drought in Regional Victoria, which considers how we can more meaningfully understand drought to help us realise a just climate transition.

On 27 November, the School of Computing, Engineering and Mathematical Sciences is presenting its annual Engineering and IT Showcase at our Bundoora campus. Go along to see outstanding student and staff technology projects that have been delivered this year with industry and government partners.

In closing

It’s been another productive month – and year – across the University. I’m looking forward to participating in my first Staff Awards ceremony on 10 December and congratulate the many colleagues and teams that have been nominated for an award.

I hope to see you at our final all-staff webinar for the year on 13 November.

Best wishes,
Theo